Category Archives: Coalitions & Campaigns

ECO-Action and its partners (The Conservation Fund, Park Pride, CIA, WAWA and MAUWI), continue to engage the impacted under-served communities of English Avenue and Vine City in the Proctor Creek watershed through its Green Infrastructure for the AUC Initiative. The 2nd Green Infrastructure Community Forum held on November 14th at the Lindsay Street Baptist Church made a big step in advancing this effort.

Spelman student presenters at Community Forum 2

Speakers first shared progress on the implementation of the Proctor Creek/North Avenue Study (which proposed green infrastructure improvements for the Vine City and English Avenue neighborhoods) and progress on ongoing efforts by AUC faculty, staff and students to develop green infrastructure conceptual plans.

Having this material as a foundation, participants created action plans that could guide their collective efforts to spearhead community led projects that would improve conditions in Proctor Creek neighborhoods. The action plan areas were:

Developing a Proctor Creek Learning Exchange,

Advancing Workforce Development for Green Infrastructure,

Creating a Smart Relocation Resource Center and

Advancing the Improvement of the Proctor Creek North Avenue Conceptual plans through joint student/community efforts.

All of these projects will engage community and University participants in service projects that advance green infrastructure and address community environmental justice concerns. The plans that were created are a roadmap for future efforts. They also include a structure that engages AUC faculty, staff and students in these efforts. The action steps developed during the group’s deliberations will not only help to advance green infrastructure but also help to lift up communities out of unhealthy homes, create green spaces, and improve the quality of Proctor Creek. You can read more about these action plans on the Green Infrastructure at the AUC page of the website.

The forum closed with tour of the nearby Lindsay Street Park led by Shannon Lee of the Conservation Fund. This Vine City park which formally opened in October, showcases a daylighted section of Proctor Creek and includes green infrastructure and native plantings.

Despite parents’ best efforts to buy organic and use natural products, toxic chemicals are still found in baby toys, the lining of food containers, cosmetics and other products we use daily. The situation is worse for families with limited budgets. A recent report by the Campaign for Healthier Solutions found more than 80 percent of products tested from discount retailers contained lead, phthalates or other chemicals linked to cancer, learning disabilities and birth defects. And as Richard Moore and Sofia Martinez noted in The Santa Fe New Mexican earlier this year (“A toxic shell game: State deserves better,” My View, March 29), communities in New Mexico and other places face a legacy of overexposure to toxins.

You might think that the federal government would have tested the 84,000 chemicals registered for commercial use today. You’d be wrong.

Forty years ago, the federal government did pass a law meant to protect the American people from exposure to toxic chemicals. But opposition from the chemical industry made it a five-year fight, and the final law was deeply flawed. Instead of requiring manufacturers to prove new chemicals are safe before they are marketed, the Toxic Substances Control Act allows a chemical to continue to be used until or unless the Environmental Protection Agency can prove that it poses an “unreasonable risk to human health.” The burden is on government to prove a chemical is unsafe.

Thanks to lobbying from chemical manufacturers, the law allowed the 62,000 chemicals already in use in 1976 to remain on the market, with no safety testing required. Of the more than 20,000 new chemicals registered since then, EPA has ordered testing of only 250 of them, and just nine chemicals have been restricted.

Katherine McFate is the president and CEO of the Washington-based, Center for Effective Government, a member organization of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Family Coalition. This OpEd piece was originally published in the Santa Fe New Mexican. As a Georgia partner in the Safer Chemicals Healthy Family Coalition, ECO-Action is involved in the state’s fight to keep toxic chemicals away from our children. Look for more information about this vital issue soon.

With the construction of the new stadium in Cobb County, the 77 acres of public land that now make up the Turner Field Stadium area are poised for new development. Housing, transportation options, and all other aspects of creating a livable community are on the table. It’s a huge opportunity for positive growth in the area, if the members of the surrounding NPU-V community can be active in the planning process. The Turner Field Community Benefits Coalition (TFCBC) is working for exactly that – an inclusive development planning process that connects the residents, stakeholders, business owners and students of the surrounding neighborhoods and honors their needs as the area is developed.

But unfortunately, the residents of these neighborhoods have not been included in the planning thus far. Instead, Georgia State University and private developer Carter worked together to come up with their own plan and process for the redevelopment of Turner Field and its immediate environs. On June 2, 2015, the stage was set for GSU and the private developer to reveal those plans at a community meeting.

On this day – the community’s first opportunity to weigh in – the people truly showed up. TFCBC demonstrated the power of community organization by packing more than 200 people into the meeting room. Their message? “You do not invite us to come see your plans for us. We invite you.” In response Carter President Scott Taylor said, the partners wanted to present a vision of “how we can collectively and collaboratively make this very special,” and vowed a transparent process involving the desires of stadium neighborhoods.

Because realistically, who is better poised to say where new housing is needed than someone who might live there? Who better to suggest necessary transportation options than someone who might use them? These types of decisions cannot be made without the people they affect sitting at the table. The TFCBC sent this strong message to Georgia State University that day, ensuring not only that they will be sitting at the table as the planning process moves forward, but that their voices will be heard.

If you would like to get involved with the Turner Field Community Benefits Coalition, which is working to create livable communities that meets the needs of their residents, visit www.turnerfieldcoalition.org or find them on Facebook and Twitter @TFCoalition . ECO-Action is a founding member of TFCBC and will continue to provide ongoing support to this vital community initiative.

For the first time in 10 years, environmental rule-writers are reconsidering just how much Atlanta sewage should be allowed to wash downstream toward neighbors in DeKalb and beyond. It should be pretty much zero, activists say. Not gonna happen, says the city.

What Atlanta has now is a “third-world approach” toward sewage disposal, said Jacqueline Echols, president of the South River Watershed Alliance. The South River starts in East Point and flows through Atlanta, south DeKalb County, and points southeast before emptying into Jackson Lake.

She refers to Atlanta’s approach as such because in some of the oldest parts of the city — English Avenue and Vine City — the same set of pipes is supposed to handle both rainwater and toilet flushes. When it rains too hard, the system can’t handle everything, and some of what goes down area toilets runs into area streams without being fully treated. Running a system that allows such sewage spread shows zero respect for people on the river, Echols says.

The SRWA and some other groups are calling for environmental regulators to clamp down on pollution from sewage overflows. The state Environmental Protection Division is now in the middle of its periodic review of the pair of permits that say what Atlanta can flush westward toward the Chattahoochee and eastward toward Jackson Lake.

A new study found that vinyl flooring sold by Menards and other retailers tested contained phthalates, toxic chemicals that have been restricted in children’s products. Menards is the third largest home improvement chain in the country.

A growing body of credible scientific evidence has linked exposure to phthalates to serious health concerns: birth defects in baby boys, learning and behavioral problems and asthma in children. What’s worse — phthalates don’t stay in flooring – they get into the air and dust we breathe in our homes, and then make their way into our bodies.

Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, is requiring all of their suppliers to ban added phthalates in all virgin vinyl flooring by the end of this year. Lowe’s is as well. If both Home Depot and Lowe’s can ban phthalates in flooring, so can Menards!

ECO-Action supports the call of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families to TAKE ACTION! Ask Menards CEO John Menard Jr. to #MindTheStore and phase out phthalates in flooring by signing here.